The concept of growing grasses over an impervious surface, typically plastic sheeting, goes back, at least in the United States, to experiments I conducted at Ohio Wesleyan University, in Delaware, Ohio, in the 1960's. I proved at that time that many types of grasses would grow well and produce sods rapidly in various contrived media placed over plastic sheeting.
Sods grown in this manner are usually much lighter than conventional mineral sods. Early in the research on this concept, it was obvious that lighter sods could be handled more economically in large rolls rather than the typical one square yard roll or sheet common to conventional sodding. It occurred to me that if I could produce large but light rolls of sod on the order of 30 to 50 square yards per roll, and if these could be handled by machine, then it would be possible to obviate large laying crews and the labor intensive characteristic of the conventional sod industry.
I therefore invented a device whereby one person can harvest and load large rolls of sod, and the device can also be used by one person to unload and lay or install sod rolls of any size. Furthermore it can be used to handle conventional soil grown sod rolls as well as those grown on an impervious surface such as concrete or plastic sheeting.